Clarifying fates, bringing biographies to light

The project is clarifying the fates of Soviet POWs, one of the largest groups of victims of National Socialism. The project findings will be used to respond to inquiries from family members. The indexed data and documents can also be used by researchers and for commemorative activities. Additionally, by digitizing documents, we are helping to preserve Ukrainian archival material which is in danger of being destroyed by Russian attacks.

Today, on September 26, 2026, the #everynamecounts campaign is commemorating the Battle of Kyiv, which ended 85 years ago, and the hundreds of thousands of Soviet military personnel who were taken as prisoners of war by the Germans. For many decades after the Second World War, however, there was a lack of political will both in Germany – East and West – and in the homeland of the Soviet POWs to remember the suffering of this group. The Wehrmacht oversaw the POW camps and bore primary responsibility for the crimes. Though there was no scholarly backing for it, the myth of the “clean Wehrmacht” persisted in Germany for a long time. Meanwhile, in the Soviet Union, the POWs faced collective accusations of cowardice and treason. The survivors were stigmatized as a group until perestroika. On top of this, the Soviet archives that held the majority of the German documents relevant to the project were only gradually opened from the late 1980s. In general, the process of reappraising this history began very late. We can see just how important it is from the fact that family members of Soviet POWs travel long distances when they learn where their relatives were buried so they can bid farewell – with Orthodox, Islamic, Jewish, and other rituals.

The Soviet Union was a multi-ethnic empire, a colonial power with over 100 nationalities, and this was reflected in the Red Army. To this day, we often hear the term “Russian prisoners of war” in public discourse, even though many of the prisoners were actually Ukrainians, Kazaks, or Georgians, for example. More than 800,000 women served in the Red Army. The experiences of the POWs in German custody could vary greatly depending on their nationality, gender, religion, and social and political categories.

Jewish POWs and military personnel with political functions had the lowest chances of survival. Other groups which were ranked more highly in the ideology of the National Socialists sometimes had somewhat better chances, although the mortality rate was high for everyone. It is also necessary to consider the prisoners’ differing loyalties and affiliations with the Soviet power. In connection with the German-Soviet non-aggression pact, the Soviet Union occupied the Baltic states, Eastern Poland, and other territories in 1939–1940. Soldiers from previously independent states soon found themselves serving in the army of the occupier. In view of this complexity, it is essential to take a differentiating approach.

To appreciate individual experiences, it is essential to look at the prisoners’ postwar biographies as well. Survivors often mark historical ruptures differently than historians. For many of the Soviet POWs, the war was not yet over in 1945. In some cases, they did not return home until months or even years later. Some of the POWs who had been transported to Germany were stationed directly in the Soviet occupation zone after the liberation. Additionally, the POWs who had survived the camps were screened by the Soviet security services for evidence of alleged misconduct. The deep distrust that the state displayed toward them when they returned was a painful experience for many. The postwar biographies of the survivors also varied. Conversations I had some months ago with relatives of POWs in Georgia made this very clear.

German sources from the POW camps are central to clarifying the prisoners’ fates. These include the prisoner cards that were created during registration. We are also indexing Soviet documents, such as the “filtration files” that the Soviet security services created when they screened the prisoners returning home. This gives us information about important personal details such as nationalities and occupations, but also about camps, forced labor, and burial sites, and about the repatriation of the survivors and Stalinist repression. The documents additionally name POWs who switched sides and worked for the Germans. In our project, we are bringing together German and Soviet sources along with documents from many other countries for every single POW. In doing so, we sometimes find records that are demonstrably false. False information is particularly interesting because it can provide insights into the agency of the POWs. In some cases, we can show that POWs adopted different identities in different contexts and thus improved their chances of survival.

Ukraine has very large holdings of documents relevant to the project which have received far too little attention to date. Furthermore, access to such documents is exceptionally good in Ukraine. While files from the Soviet security services are still kept sealed in many of the successor states to the Soviet Union, they are widely accessible in Ukraine. These holdings include German documents that were taken to the Soviet Union during and after the war. We are working mainly with Ukrainian regional archives, because the digitalization rate is lower here than in the central archives in Kyiv. In this way, we hope to help preserve this unique cultural asset, which is massively under threat.

Several archives in Ukraine have already been hit by rockets and drones, and archival material has been destroyed. Ukraine is doing a great deal to save its archival material. Portions of it have been evacuated from territories near the front line. Some Ukrainian archives are located in Russian-occupied territories and are no longer accessible to us. Overall, however, it is possible to work very productively in various regions of Ukraine. We have great respect for what our Ukrainian colleagues are achieving in their archives under wartime conditions – with constant air raids, personnel shortages, and repeated power cuts. Russia is waging its war against Ukraine in part by spreading historical disinformation and looting archives. One look at the documents we are indexing firmly refutes the Russian narrative that “the Ukrainians are all Nazis.”

We are working with a small team of people who have many years of experience working in archives in Eastern European countries, and who know the necessary languages and have sound knowledge of the German POW system and Stalinism. Technical skills are also required to index the large amounts of data and make them accessible in databases. We are part of the Max Weber Network Eastern Europe belonging to the Max Weber Foundation, which is represented in 14 countries, including many relevant to the project. This network, and especially the close cooperation with partners like the Arolsen Archives, guarantees professional work.

A lot has been accomplished over the past decades to better integrate Soviet POWs in European memory cultures. Nonetheless, in Germany, this group still does not receive the acknowledgement that is appropriate to their fate. In general, I hope for a memory culture in which Eastern Europe plays a central role. Tragically, it is Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine that is bringing more attention to these regions.